Shaky extension sync debuts in Chrome

Neither enabled by default nor particularly stable, the long-sought-after browser feature to synchronize extensions across multiple computers arrived Thursday in the developer's builds of Google Chrome.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Google Chrome dev 6.0.437.1 for Windows and Linux, and version 6.0.437.2 for Mac, include a rudimentary version of extension sync that users need to manually activate, a collection of the usual bug fixes and performance tweaks, and also combines the stop and reload buttons into one to streamline the omnibox and free up space for extension icons.

To enable the extension sync, users must go to a Chrome shortcut's properties and, at the end of the Target field, add the following command line switch: "--enable-sync-extensions" without the quotes. For novice command line switch users, note that a space is needed between the end of the "chrome.exe" and the sync extension switch.

Mac users will have to enable the feature through Terminal.

For now, syncing enthusiasts should not add the command line hack because of crashes directly related to the feature. At the time of writing, Google had stopped auto-updating dev channel users to investigate crashes related to the Extension sync. Downloading a new developer's version installer won't update the browser, either.